OCEAN’S THIRTEEN was a hit in 2007, clicking 24th for the year at the boxoffice, though it didn’t draw quite as well as its predecessor, likely because the over-complicated and overly “in” Ocean’s Twelve was a comedown from the sparky Ocean’s Eleven. This third installment was an improvement over #2, still loaded for bear but not top heavy. Steven Soderbergh directed and manned his own camera, the script this scheme out was done by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, who’d teamed well on Runaway Jury. Costs were brought down by 22%, dumb cameos were absent, a few of Twelve‘s stars opted out, a few new ones came in, and Europe was left to recover with the action brought back to Las Vegas, where theft is…legal.

When one of his old buddies is shafted by a ruthless business partner, ‘Danny Ocean’ (George Clooney) decides to get sweet revenge by breaking the bank of ‘Willy Bank’ (Al Pacino), the cold mogul who ruined Danny pal ‘Reuben’ (Elliott Gould) bad enough to give him a heart attack. The old team rallies for some more casino fleecing, with ‘good’ crime represented in the familiar forms of Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Carl Reiner, Eddie Jemison and Quin Shaobo. Back to help or hinder are Andy Garcia, Vincent Cassel and Eddie Izzard. Streamlined and snappy, directed, shot, edited and scored to zip along with cheek and aplomb, it’s pleasing light entertainment. It doesn’t amount to much more than just fun: what’s wrong with that?

Pacino makes a good bad guy, and he refrains from shouting. Looking terrific, tack sharp Ellen Barkin is his chief underling. Production cost came to $85,000,000. Domestic gross tagged $117,100,000, international a further $194,600,000.

122 minutes, with David Paymer, Bob Einstein, Olga Sosnovska, Julian Sands and Jerry Weintraub.